Google’s Demographic Bet

December 19, 2008

I recall having an email exchange about the revenue Google books for its enterprise business unit. I pointed out that Google, like most big public companies, doesn’t provide detailed breakdowns. Why make life easy for the Wall Street Excel jockeys? Most people don’t pay much attention to Google’s activities in schools, colleges, and universities. The ignorance will be punished when the students who emerge from the hallowed halls and want to use Google, not what their employer wants them to use. To see the strategy in action, read the Washington Post’s “In Their Search for Help, Fairfax Schools Find Google” here. The key comment in the article was this passage:

The Internet giant, with a new presence to bolster its effort to gain government business, said it plans to outfit schools with software to help students learn geography. The deal is one of 300 partnerships the county school system has with businesses, a number the schools would like to increase as the economy sours.

My thought is that there will be quite a few Googlers moving through the educational pipeline. Where’s Apple? Where’s Microsoft? Where’s Yahoo? I see Googzilla. What do you see?

Comments

Search the site

Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining
and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky.
He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues
worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go
"beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site
with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.